portsmouth-vs-chelsea.pngOne of the crucial weekends of the season which could jumble up the top 4 positions of the table. Arsenal travel to the City of Manchester stadium in their early kick off and Man Utd travel to White Hart Lane when we play at Fratton Park.

A perfect day of football could be Arsenal and Man Utd losing as Chelsea picks up three points. One or both of the toppers losing points would also be great.

I think this would be the team: Cech, Belletti, Alex, Ivanovic, Bridge, Makelele, SWP, Ballack, Joe Cole, Anelka and Malouda. We will miss Carvalho due to suspension. I want to see Ivanovic and I think today would be the day. I guess he is match-fit. Ashley Cole may still not be out of his marital troubles. Bridge could start. Other than that I don’t see Grant making any changes to the team that had won.

Avram Grant with his pre-match bites.

I think nobody believed we could do this. It is because we have a very good squad and very good staff. It is good that we already share the record and if we break the record, we will be even more happy. We are happy that we are in the race for all four competitions. I know that it will be almost impossible to do but we live from game-to- game. We try to win as much as possible. We are playing all the games without many key players and still we are winning.

We try to play intelligent football now, pass the ball, and for him it’s easier. We’ve gone to a different way, and for him and others they are used to it very well, it is much easier, for the others also they feel good with this. When you change style a bit, or more than a little bit sometimes, you wonder if the players will like it.

Now, I don’t want to say anything about the intelligent football that Avram talks about. Period.

Pompey are supposed to be worst-hit team by the African Cup, more than any other team including Chelsea. They’d be missing Kanu, Utaka, Muntari, Bouba Diop and Lauren. Sad part for them is, they don’t have an Anelka or Alex or Ballack to step in for their missing African Cup players.

Worrying factor is the consistency levels of SWP and Joe Cole. They’re fine one day and horrible next day. At some point, all skillful players get into this trouble of being over-confident and try to do stuff which they can pull off 1 out of 5 times, but resorting to such things irrespective of the situation of the game. Especially some one like Joe Cole should be measured only by his contribution to the team rather than any other edge he provide to the team. Even when most skilled player on earth fails to contribute to the team as much as expected, he doesn’t play. Ask Ronaldinho.

One thing I have noticed is that we are have weakened in the middle third of the pitch. In defence, we have top guys out there and they’re rock solid. Petr Cech is past his couple of bad weeks and back to his best, especially from the day his baby was born. In attack, we have the players who can produce that moment of magic to clinch the game. Even in midfield, with Maka, Ballack and SWP, we should be superior to most of the opponents but it so turns out that we are not strong in the middle third. The weakness in the middle third is what allows even the smaller oppositions to turn the heat on Chelsea when they want to. In the past few weeks/months, the opposition teams have always been able to attack us to death at will. Of course, they may not pierce our top defence and big Pete, but still good enough to give us a scare. With some extra quality, this scare could result in goals.

Pompey have signed Defoe. It’s a fantastic signing by Harry. He says he is a big fan of Defoe. Me too. I love this guy. He was going through a bad patch. When you have a Berbatov and Keane above you, especially when you’re in a bad patch, it won’t help you much. Jermaine did not want to leave Spurs but it had to happen. Defoe is a natural striker with the all the instincts of one. He is a small guy who can cause trouble to big defenders. Playing in his first match for Pompey, he would be keen to score.

Ex-Chelsea (or ex-Arsenal?) Lassana Diarra will get a chance to play against Chelsea. He can be a dangerous player. I always like Diarra and even was hoping for a return of Diarra to Chelsea, when he fell out with Wenger. If he’s got another quickish full back or quickish winger around him, he can be very dangerous. Pity that we couldn’t keep him. We could have kept Diarra for SWP. Diarra was much more versatile and gives us more options than SWP does. But nowadays versatility matters less as we have enough top quality second choice players that no one had to play out of position in the last few months. And there is Milan Baros joining Pompey! Why is that Pompey is collecting all my favourite players? Baros and Defoe would soon start rocking the league, but I’m not sure if they form a good partnership as early as today.

A win at Fratton park could be a new Chelsea record for winning streak in all competitions including European and domestic cups. BBC says Chelsea are defending a 100% record against Portsmouth in the Premier League of nine wins out of nine, in which 19 goals were scored and just one conceded. All four previous Premier League visits to Fratton Park have been won by 0-2 margins. Very good record. I don’t see us doing anything different today. Another 2-0 for Chelsea.